Reading: Ex. 34:4-6.8-9; Ps. Dn. 3:29-34; 2Cor.13:11-13; John 3:16-18
Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Emenike Onyia
UNDERSTANDING HOW GOD HAS REVEALED HIS MYSTICAL NATURE TO HUMANITY
No doubt that humanity perceives God as a mystery and in need, he is a great mystery. But when we perceive something as a mystery, it does not really mean that we cannot know anything about that thing. It simply means that we cannot know everything about that thing. We only know to the extent our reasoning faculty can perceive. This means that perceiving God as a mystery shows that we can know something about him, but we cannot know everything about him.
Now the questions are: what do we know about God? How has God revealed Himself to us? How have we perceived and understood this revelation? What impact has this revelation and understanding made in our lives as human beings living in the world he created? The answer to these questions is found in the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, which we celebrate today.
Little wonder, every first Sunday after the great event of Pentecost, that marks the end of Easter season and the Church has been filled with the Holy Spirit, our attention is turned to the mysteries of heaven, where we gaze with an eye of faith into the mystery of God’s revelation of his mystical nature as a Trinitarian form of Love.
That is, in a form of three Persons, Father, Son and Spirit who are ONE GOD in substance and essence. Here, the Father is love, the Son is love made Flesh, and the Spirit is love in Action. For there is wholly ONE purest, infinite and eternal LOVE which is God, and Love Personified which is God himself in the person of Jesus and Love in Action which is the Holy Spirit. This, of course, is the mystery of the Trinity, a reality that surpasses human reason.
So, the Church through revelation has come to know, understand and perceive that the Holy Trinity works in one unity and essence. For the invisible Father and invisible Son sent the visible Son in the person of Jesus, to be visible in the world to save humanity.
And the actions of the invisible Father through the visible Son are made present in the world by the Person of the Holy Spirit. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are of the same substance and essence that manifest in three persons of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. This is the mystery of God's nature we celebrate today as revealed.
Today’s solemnity reveals to us that “God is love not in the oneness of a single Person, but in the Trinity of one substance”, as we have it in the Preface of today’s celebration. Telling us that God, who is Love, is the creator and merciful Father; he is the Only-Begotten Son, the eternal Word of Wisdom incarnate, who died and rose for us; he is also the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, who moves all things in history, toward their final and full recapitulation.
This is a special feast that allows us to gaze into the communitarian life of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, who live in a communion of love and call us to participate in this love. Thereby reminding us of the marvellous plan of our salvation, that finds its origin in this Trinitarian love of the Father, who sent the Son and the Holy Spirit for the redemption of humanity. For we have been called to share in this family of love. This family of love is God’s nature that he shares with humanity through the Son Jesus, the Word Made Flesh and the Holy Spirit the Paraclete.
Thus, in this Sunday’s solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, we celebrate the summary of God’s revelation of Himself to humanity which was brought about through the paschal mysteries of Christ’s Death, Resurrection and Ascension to the right hand of the Father, and the gracious outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This great mystical revelation of the Triune God can not be totally comprehended by the human mind and language, the Church has called us to live it with deep faith and apply it in our daily lives.
Little wonder, our readings today tell us about this Trinitarian nature of God in human history, In the First Reading, we heard about the revelation of God’s Name and His active participation in the life of His people, as He proclaims before Moses in the cloud on Mount Sinai saying: “The Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness” a God who pardon our sins and iniquities and take us as His inheritance.
This is a great act of love, of which our Gospel passage today testifies, in the famous John’s Gospel, telling us that: “God so loved the world that he gave his Only Begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” This clearly shows us love in action, illustrating that God is not closed or satisfied with his own self-sufficiency, but he is the life of love that wants to communicate Himself with His fragile creatures in an open and deep relationship.
Hence St Paul in our second reading encouraged us to rejoice, mend our ugly ways of life, heed his appeal, agree with one another, live in peace, so that the God of love and peace will be with us. He then introduced and commended us into the grace and life of the Triune God, saying: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
Therefore inviting us to share and participate in the communitarian family of love in the Trinity, that is now open for all humanity. That is why we are baptised in the name of the Trinity, we are blessed in the name of the Trinity, we are consecrated to the life and family of God through the Trinitarian formula.
Dear friends, today’s solemnity invites us to embrace the new life we have found in the Trinity, that new life that calls us to the reality of love that is contained in the mystery of our faith. The One love of the Father, that is made Flesh in the Person of the Son Jesus, and in action in the Person of the Holy Spirit, in a purely physical unity of which humanity is called to participate.
Hence Jesus has revealed to us that we are essentially “God’s children”, creatures who live in relationship with the Creator God the Father, and are called to share this relationship with one another. Thereby reaching out to God and to our fellow mankind, in whose life we discover the image of our common love in the Father.
Thus, in this love comes the model of the human community, originating from the Triune Family to our individual human families down to the society and the world at large, pointing to us that humanity is one, related in the one love of God our common Father, through His Son Jesus in the active power of the Holy Spirit.
This is the faith we have embraced and are called to share with all humility. Therefore, we are called to grow in this mission, knowing that, the Trinity is at the same time unity in love and in mission, the more deep this love dwells in us, the stronger the urge to pour it out and spread it to all, beginning from our family, down to society and to the ends of the Earth.
LET US PRAY: Heavenly Father, as you reveal the mystery of your nature which is love and calls us to share and participate in it, grant that humanity may come to embrace this loving kindness, and so be united as one family sharing one common Father in love and truth, we ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God forever and ever. Amen. Have a fruitful Sunday celebration.
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